Problem-solving and conceptual behavior have for many years ranked
high among the factors of intelligence. Some writers have even attempted
to define intelligence in terms of problem-solving or conceptual ability.
Others have employed problem-solving or conceptual tasks in their attempts
to validate the construct of intelligence. The importance of this area to the
study of mental deficiency would appear to be obvious. However, a perusal
of the literature for the present chapter, which encompassed a period from
approximately 1927 through March, 1961, has uncovered a relatively
limited number and variety of studies about the basic processes of problem
solving and concept formation. There appears to have been a preoccupation
with the comparative study of individual differences in abstract behavior
to the neglect of areas of practical, if not theoretical, importance.

After an attempt to define some of the basic terms in use in the area of
problem-solving and conceptual behavior, the plan of the present chapter
is to consider some problems of research methodology and then to review
critically the literature on problem solving, concept formation, and abstract
and concrete behavior. Only those studies that clearly include mentally
deficient Ss have been reviewed in the present chapter. The reader will note
the exclusion of topics such as learning set and reversal learning, which
are traditionally covered in chapters on learning, but which sometimes
appear in general reviews of concept formation (e.g., T. S. Kendler, 1961).
A review of the research derived from Piaget's formulations has also been
omitted, in view of the presence of a separate chapter dealing with his
contributions. The problem of exclusion was particularly difficult, as the
subject matter of the present chapter so clearly overlaps certain other areas

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